


Chjtolene

by afterism



Category: Jolene (Song) - Dolly Parton
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Eldritch, F/F, Horror, Other, Trick or Treat: Trick, deliberately vague time period, loss of sight, vague Americana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 14:58:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16477730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterism/pseuds/afterism
Summary: Looking at Jolene is like staring into the sun: it burns.





	Chjtolene

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a specific prompt, but I belatedly realised it was too close to one of the requester's DNWs for comfort, so - Happy Halloween, Trick or Treaters!

The world is mostly grey, and Old Man Caleb is sitting in the corner booth. Dawn clings to the diner, and the town, and the coastline beyond; the sun rose an hour ago but this mist hasn't lifted, and the only light that gets through is scattered and weak.

"She's back," Caleb keeps saying, sometimes loudly, sometimes in a whisper. There's no one outside the window, the sea still as a mirror under the fog. "She's back."

There's no one else in the diner, either. You tap the back of your fingers against the coffee pot, thinking about nothing other than the seeping warmth, because the whole town knows Caleb is half blind and three quarters crazy and you've learnt to pay him no mind. He's neat and usually quiet and everyone that comes in here knows him, anyway. There's never anyone new.

"The most beautiful woman," he says, and trails off. His index and middle finger start tapping on the Formica, a beat that never quite settles into a rhythm, and when you go over to refill his coffee you can hear him, muttering, chanting just under his breath, _outside inside outside inside outside_.

He stops, when you put the pot down with a hard click. He doesn't look up.

"Outside," he says, with a nod to the table. "Outside the stars."

"Glad to hear it," you say, because he always seems to like a response, but today he just turns his face towards the window, towards the ocean, and stares out. His profile is as jagged as the cliffs and you can only see his blind eye, white as sun-bleached bone, staring at nothing. 

"Holler if you need anything," you say, like a knife through fog; the silence folds itself around your voice like it was never there. You pick up the coffee pot, glance towards the unending stillness outside, and turn away.

\---

Your shift ends at midday, and by then everyone is talking about her. You walk the short trek into the center of town in muffled, grey silence because this mist has even upset the birds, and you're two steps into the store when Tom grabs your wrist and smiles, wide and full of teeth.

"Did you see her? The beautiful woman?" he says, and just blinks with his unfaltering grin when you shake your head and twist your arm away from him. Tom's always a bit intense, always a bit too close, but he's harmless. It's fine.

Garrett rings you up, punching numbers into the register, and everything's fine until he passes over your change and grabs your hand, his fingertips grinding your knuckles together. 

"Did you see her?" he asks, staring at you, unblinking. "Isn't she the most exquisite thing you've ever seen?"

"That's a big word for you," you say, and jerk back, fist tight around the coins.

"Have a good day now," Garrett says, smiling.

At least the lumber yard is loud with life when you walk up to it, and for a moment your chest is light with relief because everything's normal, everything's fine, the boys at the store musta just decided it had been too long since they last hassled you. The fog can't swallow the sound of the sawmill; you follow the noise until the dark shapes form trees, planks, machinery, Mary —

"They're all out by the office," she yells over the shriek of the saw, wiping the back of her glove across her forehead. She rests one hand on her hip as she catches her breath and looks at you, the blade still a sharp blur between you. No one else is around. Her arms are bare, and you shouldn't watch the way her shoulders tense as she turns away to haul another log into place. You shouldn't. "Tell them to get their fat asses back to work."

"Thanks," you call, your cheeks hot despite the damp and the cold, and clutch the paper bag a little tighter as you hurry away. He must have gone on lunch early, he'll want his pie —

Mary was right: they are all standing outside the office, but no one's eating. Your husband has his back to you, but he turns when you're a few yards away, and smiles. 

"Did you see her?" he asks, and your heart skips.

\---

You know she's beautiful with the same certainty you know your own name; everyone keeps saying it, so it must be true.

Every night is the same: you keep the home fires burning until the boys are done for the day, and then everyone meets down at the barn because there's nothing else to do. It's tradition. 

You got married under that roof. Your white dress was the only thing different from any other night. 

It's quiet when you set off down the hill. The mists have started to lift but everything's still clinging like a damp flannel, the few lights of the town hazy and sick. Through the half-open barn door you can see the shapes of the lumber yard boys, and the fishermen, and your husband, cutting shadows through the single light that spills out onto the street.

No one's moving. No one's speaking. 

You put one hand on the edge of the barn door, peering in, and then you see her.

\---

Her hair is red: the color you see when you close your eyes and turn your face towards the midday sun.

\---

Her skin is ivory: pale as stars, as bone, as the white of an eye.

\---

Her eyes are green: as bright and gleaming as the necklace your mother gave you, the one you keep under the floorboards.

\---

Your cheeks are burning, because she is what you picture when you're on your back and your husband is above you. She's a collage of every woman you've ever let your eye linger on, and she shouldn't be standing on a cable spool table in the middle of the god-damned barn. 

(Except — you close one eye, and she has no hair, or eyes, or skin. She is colours you can't describe and shapes your tongue recoils from and more sides that you could ever count. She is vast and terrible and unfathomable.

And she is unspeakably beautiful. You can see her without your eyes, and your heart skips.)

There are firecrackers under your skin and you're flushed all the way to your fingertips. You want to touch. You want to fall to your knees and worship. You want her to look at you (without eyes) and smile (without lips) and whisper your name (without words).

The barn door is still under your palm, and you must have clenched your hand because pain bursts under your skin, a splinter deep into your fingertip. You look away without thinking, and then suddenly your legs are trembling and you know you should step forward, you should join them, you should worship her, you should —

Your finger throbs. You back away, slipping out of the light even as your legs barely hold you up. You stagger until you can walk, walk until you can run, run until you're home and you can lock the door and let your legs give way beneath you, your lungs heaving, your heart pounding. 

(Did she notice you leave? Did she notice you at all?)

\---

You get up at five in the morning, as dawn cracks through the mists, and your man stumbles through the front door a minute after you put the coffee on.

"Jesus, dark enough for ya?" he says, and grabs the coffee before you. He throws his weight against the counter as you make a half-hearted attempt to get his mug; he's unsteady on his feet, but he laughs, and then squints across at you.

"Guess it was too late for you, huh? We had a real wild time. That Jolene's got some lungs on her — voice of an angel, you know? She got the whole barn up and singing. Even Old Man Caleb was there, right at the front, chanting with everything he had."

Chanting, you want to say. But you didn't, you want to say. You looked out your window at midnight and the barn was silent. The light was wrong — it pulsed, and was red, and all you heard was silence.

"That's nice," you say.

You don't go the next night. You pack a bag and sit in the car, keys in the ignition, the engine cold, and watch the red light pulsing.

\---

Old Man Caleb disappears. 

"He died," your man says. "Remember? Everyone knows that. We had that, er—," he falters, frowns, rubs a hand across his forehead. "You know, that funeral. It's what he would have wanted."

It's what he would have wanted, they say. Everyone, the same words, the same inflections, the same odd lilt in the spaces. It's what he would have wanted.

\---

You sit in the car, and watch the red light pulsing in time with your heart. You've got a full tank of gas and a box of matches and a whole lot of rags. 

Half the town must be in there (or — more, certainly. You've always been outnumbered in this town. You've been fussed over for as long as you can remember, the one girl born in a town that's only ever made boys.) 

You should wait until it's light, until everyone's gone home.

(You go back to bed, setting your alarm for five with shaking fingers — it's cold, it's just the cold. Why can't you _do_ anything —)

\---

The diner is empty from when you open up to when Julie takes over at midday. No Caleb, no fishermen, no men from the yard aching for a cup of decent joe. The mists have cleared but the birds haven't come back. You should have followed them. You should have never stayed here.

At least the view is pretty. You can see all the way down to the shoreline, the rough pebble beach and the grey sea stretching out, endless and flat, like it could swallow you whole without a sound.

\---

You turn off your alarm. You close the curtains. You sleep in. He comes stumbling in after your first cup of coffee is cooling on the kitchen table. 

He scuffs one foot against the wall, knocks his elbow on the sharp edge of the door, catches himself half-falling into the kitchen. 

"Turn on a light, will ya?" he says, lips pulled back as he grits his teeth. "It's dark as a grave in here."

"It's morning," you say, your heartbeat fast and demanding in your chest. The sunlight is dazzling.

"Oh," he says, and laughs with a brittle kind of shake, like a dead branch on an old tree. "Must have drunk more than I thought."

He finds the back of a kitchen chair, close and where it always is, and holds on with white knuckles.

You think of Caleb's one white eye, like a punishment for a boy caught peeping at something he shouldn't. 

"Get some sleep," you say, and go to talk to Jolene.

\---

You're good at denying yourself the things you want. You married the only boy you could stand. Mary pretends she barely knows you, and you let her. You rarely go down to the shoreline.

\---

The barn is dark, and empty, and so full of shadows that it feels like you're deep underwater, crushed from every angle when you step inside.

 _There you are_ , you hear. 

Something is touching your cheek. You know if you close your eyes, it would feel like a hand. You keep them open.

 _You precious thing_ , you hear. _The blood you must have to still be standing._

"Leave him alone," you say, and it sounds shaky, but you can't trust your own ears.

_I saw you. I hoped you would come back._

"Please, leave him alone," you say. You're dimly aware of your cheeks like a memory in motion, stretched and sticky: tears drying as fast as they can fall. You can't see anything, but your eyes are open.

 _Unbind me_ , she says. _Stay with me. Let me taste you._

"Take me instead," you say.

"Yes," Jolene says, bright as blood, and there's a hand on your cheek, and she doesn't have lips to kiss you with, but your eyes are open and she's unfolding and the light is red and pulsing —


End file.
